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Welcome to Edition 2.29 of the Rocket Report! This week saw SpaceX complete a critical in-flight abort test that clears a major hurdle for the company as it seeks to launch astronauts into orbit this year. We also have not one, but two stories about launch companies in New Zealand. Way to go, Kiwis!

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

No one hurt in Firefly "anomaly" during test. On Wednesday evening, at Firefly Aerospace's test site about an hour north of Austin in Central Texas, some sort of incident occurred, Ars reports. "During testing this evening we experienced a test anomaly resulting in a small fire on our test stand," the company said in a statement. Firefly is working to complete a first-stage test-firing ahead of an anticipated April launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Normal rocket-testing stuff ... Company chief executive Tom Markusic downplayed the incident. He told a local television reporter that it "resulted from fuel coming out of one of the engines that created a small fire. When a rocket starts up, it sounds like an explosion. It's very powerful, there's fire that comes out of the rocket engine, so there's noise. It was not an explosion. It was just very normal rocket testing stuff." There was no immediate word on whether the anomaly will set Firefly's schedule back.

Stratolaunch focused on launch and hypersonics. The back-from-the-dead, Washington-based company has undergone a hiring spree in recent months, with its employee count growing from 13 to 87. It also has new owners and a new vision—according to SpaceNews, the company says it remains interested in providing launch services as well as now supporting hypersonic vehicles.

That's pretty fast ... "Stratolaunch is exploring the development of aerospace vehicles and technologies, including the need for reliable, routine access to space," Stratolaunch spokesperson Art Pettigrue told the publication. "This exploration includes the need to significantly advance the nation's ability to design and operate hypersonic vehicles." Stratolaunch appears to be considering two hypersonic approaches: one, called Hyper-A, would be capable of reaching speeds of Mach 6, while the larger Hyper-Z vehicle would fly to Mach 10. Both vehicles would be rocket-powered and released from Stratolaunch's aircraft. (submitted by Unrulycow and Ken the Bin)

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Boeing exits DARPA's space plane program. The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said Wednesday that Boeing is dropping out of its Experimental Spaceplane Program immediately. The decision grounds the XS-1 Phantom Express even though technical tests had shown the hypersonic space plane concept was feasible, GeekWire reports. The program was aimed at developing a launch system for military and commercial applications that have aircraft-like operability.

Not profitable? ... "We will now redirect our investment from XSP to other Boeing programs that span the sea, air, and space domains," Boeing said in a statement. DARPA initiated the space plane development program in 2013 and chose Boeing over Northrop Grumman and Masten Space Systems to become the lead contractor for Phases II and III in 2017. The public-private effort stood to receive as much as $146 million in support from DARPA. It seems plausible that Boeing realized development of the XS-1 may cost more than DARPA was willing to invest. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

An NRO mission is next up for Rocket Lab. The self-styled "global leader in small-satellite launch" announced today it will launch a dedicated mission for the US National Reconnaissance Office for its next mission. The launch window for what the company is calling "Birds of a Feather" will open on January 31 and will lift off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1. It will be the NRO's first dedicated launch from foreign soil.

Big doings for smallsat ... According to the company, the NRO competitively awarded the contract under the Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket program, which allows the government spy agency to explore new launch opportunities that can provide a streamlined commercial approach for getting small satellites into space. It's a sign that smallsat-launch companies may play an increasingly important role in national security launches as governments move away from large, geostationary spacecraft. (submitted by Ken the Bin and platykurtic)

Another New Zealand launch company? Dawn Aerospace, based on New Zealand's South Island, is talking up a concept that involves an uncrewed rocket-propelled space plane, Radio New Zealand reports. The basic concept involves the space plane flying up to about 100km, before releasing a small two-stage rocket to send a few hundred kilograms of payload into orbit.

A long ways to go ... Last week, the company signed a memorandum with the Waitaki District Council that will allow the company to begin test launches from Oamaru Airport later in 2020. However, Dawn Aerospace General Manager James Powell said it likely would be at least four years before the company could begin commercial service. We wish the company well but expect it will face some steep technology hurdles. (submitted by dbayly and Unrulycow)

SpaceX completes in-flight abort test. On Sunday, the Falcon 9 rocket launched its Crew Dragon spacecraft. Shortly after liftoff, the company shut down the main engines of its Falcon 9 rocket and fired off the system that's meant to return the crewed capsule safely to Earth. The Dragon capsule then accelerated away from its Falcon 9 launch vehicle, oriented properly, deployed parachutes, and splashed down successfully, Ars reports.

All went well ... NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called the test "another amazing milestone." Bridenstine went on to say that the abort was smoother than expected in terms of the forces registered, which gives NASA even more confidence in the hardware. Although a few hardware tests remain, including a few more tests of Dragon's parachute systems, this flight brings SpaceX closer to a launch of Dragon with NASA astronauts later this spring or during the summer.

Solar Orbiter launch date at risk. United Launch Alliance moved its Atlas 5 rocket off a Florida launch pad Wednesday for inspections after a cooling duct unexpectedly disconnected. The problem came before a planned wet dress rehearsal to prepare for liftoff next month with the joint US-European Solar Orbiter mission, Spaceflight Now reports.

Maybe a weather issue ... The roll back to the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral's Complex 41 launch pad could delay Solar Orbiter's liftoff, which was scheduled for February 5. Officials are not sure why the umbilical duct on the launch pad disconnected Wednesday, but brisk winds on Florida's Space Coast could be the culprit. Tory Bruno, ULA's CEO, said on Twitter that engineers want to be sure the problem was not caused by something else.

Ariane 5 kicks off 2020 with a successful launch. On January 16, the Ariane 5 rocket launched from Kourou, French Guiana, and successfully put two communications satellites with a combined mass of nearly eight tons into geostationary orbit.

A big year ahead ... It was a good start to 2020, in which Arianespace seeks to launch a record number of Ariane, Soyuz, and Vega rockets from spaceports in South America and Russia. "As we enter the year of our 40th anniversary, Arianespace is targeting a record pace in 2020. It begins with this initial success of Ariane 5 at the service of two long-standing customers and partners," Arianespace Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Israël said after declaring mission success.

Long March 5B to debut in first half of 2020. China's human spaceflight agency said its version of the Long March 5 rocket optimized for delivering payloads to low Earth orbit will fly for the first time before July. The initial flight rocket has passed all of its tests before leaving the factory, Xinhua reports.

Next step, launching a space station ... China has not revealed full technical details about the rocket but says it will be used to launch elements of its modular low-Earth orbit space station. The country aims to complete construction of the 66-ton facility as early as 2022.

NASA sole-source document reveals SLS details. NASA is presently negotiating with Boeing over the procurement of core stages number three through 12 for the Space Launch System rocket, and NASASpaceflight.com has reviewed a formal justification for the award that provides insight into the contract. For example, Boeing estimates it will take about three years to build a single core stage.

Three at a time ... The sole-source justification document notes that there would typically be three units being processed at Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana, simultaneously, in different phases of production. Each core stage takes 16 months to procure and receive long-lead materials and another 36 months to manufacture, test, and deliver to the Kennedy Space Center.

512 Reader Comments

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Boeing is doing SLS development with taxpayer money under a cost plus contract which pays them a profit based on a percentage of costs incurred. It is in their interest to work as slowly and inefficiently as they can get away with. Unfortunately NASA has inexplicably been scoring them top marks and giving them maximum performance bonuses on top so it appears they can get away with almost anything.

Cost plus percentage of cost contracts are illegal for US Government contracting. It would be cost plus fixed fee (profit % goes down as cost goes up), or some hybrid like cost plus incentive fee (profit % goes up as cost goes down).

One can, of course, kind of approach cost plus percentage of cost by a sequence of scope changes, since costs due to new scope can incur fee, but regular old overruns are not "fee-bearing" (to use the term of art).

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

Jet engines have very low TWR. A modern high bypass turbojet engines has a TWR of around 5 to 6. A lower efficiency design with afterburner could get around 8:1. The Merlin 1D engines is 180:1. The RS-68 is a hydrolox engine which generally is a poor choice for first stages due to low TWR. Low in this case is 47:1. So it show how much lower jet engines are than a low thrust to weight rocket engine.

It would require a lot of engines. I believe there was some research into the idea as a way of partial reuse. A ring of jet engines would lift the rocket to altitude and give it a couple hundred m/s of velocity before detaching and returning to launch site.

Today now that SpaceX has proven first stage VTVL reuse is feasible and economical I don't think we will see anyone build something like that.

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

It's been considered. On the old sci.space Usenet Newsgroups just such a zeroth stage was proposed which would use surplus military after-burning turbojet engines for thrust. It would be a fully reusable VTVL stage. The thought being that if the USAF were to operate such a stage, they would have the engines and the expertise to service them.

The idea, at the time, was that a fully reusable SSTO could be too hard to develop. So pairing it with a fully reusable zeroth stage would make the SSTO easier to develop (e.g. it could use standard vacuum optimized bell engine nozzles instead of something more bleeding edge like an aerospilke).

Huh, I thought SpaceX had completed all the required parachute tests. Was their an explanation for why they need to do more?

After changing their parachutes to a new material they needed to re-do all the qualification tests and obviously aren't through with all of them.

I believe the reporting is that NASA wanted at least two additional tests with fresh from the factory parachutes. Most of the testing that SpaceX was doing was with reused test Mk 3 parachutes and NASA wanted some testing done with completely unused Mk 3 parachutes to see if there was any difference between new and used performance.

Sounds really strange, but that's NASA for you...

NASA: "Ok, those tests with your re-used chutes worked fine, but since you'll have to use new parachutes in real missions you'll have to repeat these tests now with new parachutes."

SpaceX: "Argh!"

In one respect, I can understand it. Most fabric material is often 'stiffer' when new and gains more 'flexibility' as it is used. This could conceivably have some impact on how the fabric of the chutes unfurls so NASA may want to make sure the modeling is consistent between the used fabric and the new. Especially since manned flights will most likely be using new chutes each time.

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

It's not infeasible, just not cost-effective. One GE90 turbofan costs $27.5M, produces 500 kN thrust, and is only usable up to about 40,000 feet altitude and Mach 0.85. Imagine an EELV-class first stage with eight engines ($220M) from the B777 airliner, and you have to drop it while subsonic, and you still have 27,000 km/h of your 28,000 km/h orbital speed (plus gravity & drag losses) that has to be made up by rockets beyond that point. It's easier and cheaper to just make the rocket engines and fuel tanks a little bigger, than to get the first 3 or 4 percent of your Delta-V from an expensive air-breathing stage.

In other news, SpaceX is starting to get results of data collected from IFA.

Per SpaceflightNow:

Quote:

Data from the Jan. 19 in-flight launch escape demonstration of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft indicate the performance of the capsule’s SuperDraco abort engines was “flawless” as the thrusters boosted the ship away from the top of a Falcon 9 rocket with a peak acceleration of about 3.3Gs, officials said Thursday.

Dropping XS-1 Phantom Express development was probably a tough decision for Boeing to make, and almost certainly deflated their collective corporate ego more than a touch. Without the benefit of any particularly deep insights to Boeing, this move strikes me as perhaps the best publicly announced decision that I've seen them make in quite some time now. Some adults beginning to attend the more critical meetings, perchance?

(Because I know that DARPA ≠ USAF or NASA in terms of contract revenues, but you've got to believe they were working diligently on how to turn the XS-1 into a tasty cost-plus Cash Cow Profit Porker. So yeah, a bitter pill.)

Well there are a few factors, first is that small launch is getting crowded, second due to the basis of the project being rapid on demand launch, stage 2 would likely have to be solid, meaning a hydrolox fist stage with extra drymass and a solid second stage the second stage wouldnt be cheap even if derived from an in production missile and that kind of acceleration wouldnt be good for most payloads particularly small sats, shuttle also was never a shinning example of reuse even when it was the only example, and using shuttle tech limits the economics of it.

DARPA does cost sharing however they arent afraid to let programs fail, which is part of their success, XS-1 was basically intended as a last go at making previous development for things like the Liquid Fly back Booster useful, but with the industry looking to provide similar service to what XS-1 was on its own theres little reason to revive it again

Absolutely. Those engines are exquisite in their design and to use them as on a once-only affair is an outrage. SLS is a bloody shameful affair. I truly hope that SpaceX continues to show Boeing up for what they are: old-skool space, slow, expensive, profligate and delivering bugger all bangs-per-buck.

How large a vehicle would it be (1st stage most likely) to have a reuseable design similar to SpaceX using the Rs-25's without needing the side boosters? Or would the side boosters still be needed for super heavy launch?

In other news, SpaceX is starting to get results of data collected from IFA.

Per SpaceflightNow:

Quote:

Data from the Jan. 19 in-flight launch escape demonstration of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft indicate the performance of the capsule’s SuperDraco abort engines was “flawless” as the thrusters boosted the ship away from the top of a Falcon 9 rocket with a peak acceleration of about 3.3Gs, officials said Thursday.

Sooo.....SpaceX appears to have nailed every milestone test thus far while Boeing is out in the weeds somewhere trying turn screw-ups into unicorns and rainbows.....

"SpaceX said the telemetry signal from the Falcon 9 rocket halted around 11 seconds after the escape burn, suggesting a “comfortable” distance of about 4,900 feet (1.5 kilometers) between the Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 fireball."

Is Stratolaunch going in to the defense industry? I don't see a use for the kind of hypersonics that could be launched from a plane except as weapons systems.Also, Boeing has pulled out of being the sole contractor for developing a hypersonic plane for DARPA because the development cost might exceed what what DARPA is willing to spend. Thus, they are turning down an assured, profitable long term contract building the things, because they are unwilling to put in a little of their own money up front. Somebody needs to remind this company that the first rule of business is, "You have to spend money to make money." I can't imagine they've developed all those civilian airliners with no skin in the game.

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

Jet engines have very low TWR. A modern high bypass turbojet engines has a TWR of around 5 to 6. A lower efficiency design with afterburner could get around 8:1. The Merlin 1D engines is 180:1. The RS-68 is a hydrolox engine which generally is a poor choice for first stages due to low TWR. Low in this case is 47:1. So it show how much lower jet engines are than a low thrust to weight rocket engine.

It would require a lot of engines. I believe there was some research into the idea as a way of partial reuse. A ring of jet engines would lift the rocket to altitude and give it a couple hundred m/s of velocity before detaching and returning to launch site.

Today now that SpaceX has proven first stage VTVL reuse is feasible and economical I don't think we will see anyone build something like that.

Not to mention with Vertical launch, the goal is to get out of the thicker part of the atmosphere almost as quickly as possible (there are caveats like throttling down for Max Q to lower strain and save propellant) so the air breathing 0 stage wouldnt help you much or for very long, the air intakes add a lot of drag, that is a big problem for smaller rockets where you might be able to get away with fewer engines.

Absolutely. Those engines are exquisite in their design and to use them as on a once-only affair is an outrage. SLS is a bloody shameful affair. I truly hope that SpaceX continues to show Boeing up for what they are: old-skool space, slow, expensive, profligate and delivering bugger all bangs-per-buck.

How large a vehicle would it be (1st stage most likely) to have a reuseable design similar to SpaceX using the Rs-25's without needing the side boosters? Or would the side boosters still be needed for super heavy launch?

RS-25s are impressive engines but they are low TWR and expensive. That essentially obligates you to use solid rocket boosters to get it off the pad (the hydrolox + solid trap). You 'could' drop the SRBs and move to a three core design using the cheaper and higher thrust RS-68s visualize a DIVH but with 7m cores but that would really just be trying to fit a square peg (hydrolox) into a round hole (first stage).

Ideally if you wanted a semi-reusable rocket comparable to the SLS you would do well to switch to kerolox or methalox for improved TWR. You could go with a monolithic core but you could also go with a three core configuration like Falcon Heavy. Rockets aren't legos but something on the scale of a hypothetical three core New Glenn is where you would want to be. 21 BE-4 engines would give you 50 MN of thrust (Saturn V is 35 MN). That would get you into the ballpark of 70 to 100t to LEO semi-reusable. You would need three landing ships and to hit the higher end likely need to stretch the upper stage.

Is Stratolaunch going in to the defense industry? I don't see a use for the kind of hypersonics that could be launched from a plane except as weapons systems.Also, Boeing has pulled out of being the sole contractor for developing a hypersonic plane for DARPA because the development cost might exceed what what DARPA is willing to spend. Thus, they are turning down an assured, profitable long term contract building the things, because they are unwilling to put in a little of their own money up front. Somebody needs to remind this company that the first rule of business is, "You have to spend money to make money." I can't imagine they've developed all those civilian airliners with no skin in the game.

Yes, but for *government* business, the motto is "Not one dime of our money if we can help it."

Oh, probably worth mentioning that the CZ-5B test flight also includes a prototype version of the new crew spacecraft (see images here).

This is the ~20 ton BLEO version, and is testing entry from 8,000km to simulate entry from cislunar space. It's going inside the test fairing for the station so has no LES fitted, but would usually be exposed with a tower LES. It's unclear when this thing is meant to go into operation, or exactly how functional the prototype is.

That's interesting. I read a news report not long ago (I know, I know, grain of salt) which described this craft as an enlarged version of Soyuz. Obviously, they have abandoned that design concept altogether.

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

Check out this video from the early 1960s that shows how Boeing manufactured the bulkheads for the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle.

Boeing uses this approach for the SLS core tank that its building now. There's a lot of expensive, custom-designed jigs and fixtures used there to hold the parts in precise alignment for welding. Misaligned parts can lead to high stress concentrations in thin-walled tanks. This is traditional aerospace manufacturing practice--indoors with a lot of expensive manufacturing support equipment.

Elon is migrating in this direction as you can see by the number of welding jigs and pre-formed parts that are showing up at Boca Chica now. And he's constructing a bunch of large tents and other buildings to move the critical welding and assembly processes indoors.

BTW that S-IC stage is 10 meters diameter and about 55 meters tall. Starship and Superheavy are 9 meters diameter. The S-IC, designed and built nearly 60 years ago, is similar to both of these SpaceX stages in size and weight.

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

Jet engines have very low TWR. A modern high bypass turbojet engines has a TWR of around 5 to 6. A lower efficiency design with afterburner could get around 8:1. The Merlin 1D engines is 180:1. The RS-68 is a hydrolox engine which generally is a poor choice for first stages due to low TWR. Low in this case is 47:1. So it show how much lower jet engines are than a low thrust to weight rocket engine.

It would require a lot of engines. I believe there was some research into the idea as a way of partial reuse. A ring of jet engines would lift the rocket to altitude and give it a couple hundred m/s of velocity before detaching and returning to launch site.

Today now that SpaceX has proven first stage VTVL reuse is feasible and economical I don't think we will see anyone build something like that.

Not to mention with Vertical launch, the goal is to get out of the thicker part of the atmosphere almost as quickly as possible (there are caveats like throttling down for Max Q to lower strain and save propellant) so the air breathing 0 stage wouldnt help you much or for very long, the air intakes add a lot of drag, that is a big problem for smaller rockets where you might be able to get away with fewer engines.

Yeah, there's really no reason to over-think it or make it unduly complicated. The goal is to get Out There as quickly as possible. Gravity recognizes brute force.

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Yeah, and that makes it weird that they are focusing so much on making SS before SH. with SH and an small expendable second stage, they could start making money out of the Raptors and steel construction.

I know that SS is the harder part, and maybe changes to it might force them to change the booster, but it's not going to make money for some years.

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Yeah, and that makes it weird that they are focusing so much on making SS before SH. with SH and an small expendable second stage, they could start making money out of the Raptors and steel construction.

I know that SS is the harder part, and maybe changes to it might force them to change the booster, but it's not going to make money for some years.

That is why they have Falcon and why you aren't going to see any exotic changes to Falcon. Falcon and Falcon Heavy are the workhorses which will bring home the bacon for the next 2 to 4 years. SpaceX is sitting pretty good. Nobody is even close to challenging Falcon or Falcon Heavy in capabilities and cost except maybe New Glenn and that would only be on the high end and SpaceX can cut prices a lot if they need to.

So if their near future is secured by F9/FH then you start work on the long tent poles first. That is in order Raptor, SS and then SH.

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Yeah, and that makes it weird that they are focusing so much on making SS before SH. with SH and an small expendable second stage, they could start making money out of the Raptors and steel construction.

I know that SS is the harder part, and maybe changes to it might force them to change the booster, but it's not going to make money for some years.

Is Stratolaunch going in to the defense industry? I don't see a use for the kind of hypersonics that could be launched from a plane except as weapons systems.Also, Boeing has pulled out of being the sole contractor for developing a hypersonic plane for DARPA because the development cost might exceed what what DARPA is willing to spend. Thus, they are turning down an assured, profitable long term contract building the things, because they are unwilling to put in a little of their own money up front. Somebody needs to remind this company that the first rule of business is, "You have to spend money to make money." I can't imagine they've developed all those civilian airliners with no skin in the game.

Going into? From the start they were intended to be a Launch Service Provider, which is one of the sections of the defense industry almost by definition, however outside of military, there is academic interest in the hypersonic regime and knowing more about it can help inform the design of reentry capable spacecraft for example, wind tunnel tests arent really capable of super sonic emulation, and our ability to use computer modeling breaks down as you go Hypersonic, largely because there isnt allot of data in that flight regime.

Yeah, and that makes it weird that they are focusing so much on making SS before SH. with SH and an small expendable second stage, they could start making money out of the Raptors and steel construction.

I know that SS is the harder part, and maybe changes to it might force them to change the booster, but it's not going to make money for some years.

Perhaps there's no real demand for a SH-type first stage without a SS 2nd-stage? And in addition to that SpaceX would still need to develop & build the SH 2nd stage which would consume additional resourcing and so most likely reduce progress on SS.

Note that SS/SH is projected to provide say 100 MT to orbit with re-usability. A 'normal' SH 2nd stage would probably provide even more payoad to orbit - perhaps significantly more. With the exception of Artemis who even has payloads that size? Perhaps SpaceX could quadruple (or more) birth GEO sats, but it'd have a low launch rate and it'd be most likely years before those larger GEO sats would be ready to go.

Rocket Lab are the "global leader in small-satellite launch" aren't they? So tacking on self styled just sounds like sour grapes.

How many companies outside of China have used a small-sat launcher to put a payload into orbit in the past decade? Since the answer is "one," Rocket Lab is the global leader by default.

(The one exception might be India's PSLV, which is a medium-class launcher often used to launch small-sats as ride-share payloads. But it's not a dedicated small-sat launcher, so arguably it doesn't count.)

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Yeah, and that makes it weird that they are focusing so much on making SS before SH. with SH and an small expendable second stage, they could start making money out of the Raptors and steel construction.

I know that SS is the harder part, and maybe changes to it might force them to change the booster, but it's not going to make money for some years.

The booster they have down. They have the tanks, the engines, and most of the control systems. Now they're working on the construction of the skin (which will be the same techniques for both SS and SH) and the aerodynamics and controls of SS ("the hard part") in making the SS test articles.

At the rate SpaceX is going, barring any major hiccup, SH + SS will be flying commercial flights as early as 2022. Remember, this doesn't have to go through NASA for anything! Meanwhile, SLS may have gotten off the pad once, maybe. SH + SS will make money as soon as R&D are paid off, so no matter what it's years from now, but it will be flying commercial flights before it makes back all its R&D money. I would imagine even FH needs about 10 total flights before it's fully profitable. We're not even half way there yet, but it's flying commercial flights to pay it off! SpaceX wants rockets flying, whereas Boeing wants rockets in dev so they make bangin' taxpayer money.

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

It's been considered. On the old sci.space Usenet Newsgroups just such a zeroth stage was proposed which would use surplus military after-burning turbojet engines for thrust. It would be a fully reusable VTVL stage. The thought being that if the USAF were to operate such a stage, they would have the engines and the expertise to service them.

The idea, at the time, was that a fully reusable SSTO could be too hard to develop. So pairing it with a fully reusable zeroth stage would make the SSTO easier to develop (e.g. it could use standard vacuum optimized bell engine nozzles instead of something more bleeding edge like an aerospilke).

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Yeah, and that makes it weird that they are focusing so much on making SS before SH. with SH and an small expendable second stage, they could start making money out of the Raptors and steel construction.

I know that SS is the harder part, and maybe changes to it might force them to change the booster, but it's not going to make money for some years.

Number of engines is a major factor. Starship testing can begin with 3 of 6 engines installed; as of last fall Elon said a minimum spec superheavy test booster would need 20+. So far they've only built 20 raptors; of those some were damaged during testing (the first ones had slightly engine rich combustion cycles) and after they fixed that problem they still had to do some tinkering to improve consistency of performance between engines (unequal throttle performance makes control systems more complex if nothing else). So they have enough engines to build and fly near SSTO Starships today; and before discovering the problems that ultimately resulted in MK1 suffering a weld failureand being known as Star Popper had originally intended to have already done so.

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

It's been considered. On the old sci.space Usenet Newsgroups just such a zeroth stage was proposed which would use surplus military after-burning turbojet engines for thrust. It would be a fully reusable VTVL stage. The thought being that if the USAF were to operate such a stage, they would have the engines and the expertise to service them.

The idea, at the time, was that a fully reusable SSTO could be too hard to develop. So pairing it with a fully reusable zeroth stage would make the SSTO easier to develop (e.g. it could use standard vacuum optimized bell engine nozzles instead of something more bleeding edge like an aerospilke).

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

It's been considered. On the old sci.space Usenet Newsgroups just such a zeroth stage was proposed which would use surplus military after-burning turbojet engines for thrust. It would be a fully reusable VTVL stage. The thought being that if the USAF were to operate such a stage, they would have the engines and the expertise to service them.

The idea, at the time, was that a fully reusable SSTO could be too hard to develop. So pairing it with a fully reusable zeroth stage would make the SSTO easier to develop (e.g. it could use standard vacuum optimized bell engine nozzles instead of something more bleeding edge like an aerospilke).

"The root cause of current rocket's high cost is caused by propellants that are volatile, corrosive, cryogenic, toxic, requiring extreme safety measures, complex and highly expensive fabrication technologies and operations." [quotes in original]

Huh, I thought SpaceX had completed all the required parachute tests. Was their an explanation for why they need to do more?

After changing their parachutes to a new material they needed to re-do all the qualification tests and obviously aren't through with all of them.

I believe the reporting is that NASA wanted at least two additional tests with fresh from the factory parachutes. Most of the testing that SpaceX was doing was with reused test Mk 3 parachutes and NASA wanted some testing done with completely unused Mk 3 parachutes to see if there was any difference between new and used performance.

Sounds really strange, but that's NASA for you...

NASA: "Ok, those tests with your re-used chutes worked fine, but since you'll have to use new parachutes in real missions you'll have to repeat these tests now with new parachutes."

SpaceX: "Argh!"

That's completely reasonable. That's a test of manufacturing variation not of the design. And if D2's are going to fall from the sky on new 'chutes, that's a reasonable thing to worry about.

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Yeah, and that makes it weird that they are focusing so much on making SS before SH. with SH and an small expendable second stage, they could start making money out of the Raptors and steel construction.

I know that SS is the harder part, and maybe changes to it might force them to change the booster, but it's not going to make money for some years.

In order for an expendable stage on SH to be any practically better than Falcon it will have to be substantially bigger than Falcon S2 so now you are talking a new interium upper but you are also talking about a rocket that wont provide meaningful cost advantage for typical payloads over Falcon.

Huh, I thought SpaceX had completed all the required parachute tests. Was their an explanation for why they need to do more?

After changing their parachutes to a new material they needed to re-do all the qualification tests and obviously aren't through with all of them.

I believe the reporting is that NASA wanted at least two additional tests with fresh from the factory parachutes. Most of the testing that SpaceX was doing was with reused test Mk 3 parachutes and NASA wanted some testing done with completely unused Mk 3 parachutes to see if there was any difference between new and used performance.

Sounds really strange, but that's NASA for you...

NASA: "Ok, those tests with your re-used chutes worked fine, but since you'll have to use new parachutes in real missions you'll have to repeat these tests now with new parachutes."

SpaceX: "Argh!"

That's completely reasonable. That's a test of manufacturing variation not of the design. And if D2's are going to fall from the sky on new 'chutes, that's a reasonable thing to worry about.

One of the reasons why Reaction Engines Limited's SABRE has attracted so much interest recently from traditional MIC one of the few air breathing engines designed not only to work in that regime but be decent getting there, however I am not sure airbreathing is as much of a concern as sustained flight with the ability to course correct in the mach 5+ regime

This made me think why no one uses a classical air breathing 0th stage of jet engines pushing vertically? I guess it should be infeasible for some obvious reasons which I can't grasp. I'm interested in figuring it out.

That's basically what you're doing when you launch a rocket from a plane. Just relying on engine thrust instead of aerodynamic lift would result in a mass of engines bigger than the mass of the rocket. The thrust at liftoff for a rocket is enormous. Jet engines are good at efficient generation of thrust, but not necessarily at thrust to weight (compared to a rocket).

Huh, I thought SpaceX had completed all the required parachute tests. Was their an explanation for why they need to do more?

After changing their parachutes to a new material they needed to re-do all the qualification tests and obviously aren't through with all of them.

I believe the reporting is that NASA wanted at least two additional tests with fresh from the factory parachutes. Most of the testing that SpaceX was doing was with reused test Mk 3 parachutes and NASA wanted some testing done with completely unused Mk 3 parachutes to see if there was any difference between new and used performance.

Sounds really strange, but that's NASA for you...

NASA: "Ok, those tests with your re-used chutes worked fine, but since you'll have to use new parachutes in real missions you'll have to repeat these tests now with new parachutes."

SpaceX: "Argh!"

That's completely reasonable. That's a test of manufacturing variation not of the design. And if D2's are going to fall from the sky on new 'chutes, that's a reasonable thing to worry about.

I think the joke is "if re-used chutes are safer than new ones, then just use re-used chutes on the actual crewed missions." Your point about manufacturing variation is valid, however.

I've only been interested in space for a relatively short time, meaning I'm really used to SpaceX's rate of progress in the last few years. Seeing that it'll take 16 months to just procure everything, with 3 years to fully complete it, the SLS seems just too... glacial. I mean they're going through test bulkheads every other week in Boca Chica.

SpaceX is doing SS development with its own money. Therefore there is incentive to complete R&D quickly and efficiently to arrive at an effective functional launcher that can then start generating revenue to start paying back the money SpaceX invested in it.

Boeing is doing SLS development with taxpayer money under a cost plus contract which pays them a profit based on a percentage of costs incurred. It is in their interest to work as slowly and inefficiently as they can get away with. Unfortunately NASA has inexplicably been scoring them top marks and giving them maximum performance bonuses on top so it appears they can get away with almost anything.

Cost plus percentage of cost contracts are illegal for US Government contracting. It would be cost plus fixed fee (profit % goes down as cost goes up), or some hybrid like cost plus incentive fee (profit % goes up as cost goes down).

One can, of course, kind of approach cost plus percentage of cost by a sequence of scope changes, since costs due to new scope can incur fee, but regular old overruns are not "fee-bearing" (to use the term of art).

But the "costs" can include the facilities overhead. So Boeing can pay for its buildings and its maintenance workers for "free" by dragging out the contract.

Rocket Lab are the "global leader in small-satellite launch" aren't they? So tacking on self styled just sounds like sour grapes.

How many companies outside of China have used a small-sat launcher to put a payload into orbit in the past decade? Since the answer is "one," Rocket Lab is the global leader by default.

(The one exception might be India's PSLV, which is a medium-class launcher often used to launch small-sats as ride-share payloads. But it's not a dedicated small-sat launcher, so arguably it doesn't count.)

In other news, SpaceX is starting to get results of data collected from IFA.

Per SpaceflightNow:

Quote:

Data from the Jan. 19 in-flight launch escape demonstration of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft indicate the performance of the capsule’s SuperDraco abort engines was “flawless” as the thrusters boosted the ship away from the top of a Falcon 9 rocket with a peak acceleration of about 3.3Gs, officials said Thursday.

Rocket Lab are the "global leader in small-satellite launch" aren't they? So tacking on self styled just sounds like sour grapes.

How many companies outside of China have used a small-sat launcher to put a payload into orbit in the past decade? Since the answer is "one," Rocket Lab is the global leader by default.

(The one exception might be India's PSLV, which is a medium-class launcher often used to launch small-sats as ride-share payloads. But it's not a dedicated small-sat launcher, so arguably it doesn't count.)